The relation of children's social cognition to other cognitive abilities is investigated. In particular, social perspective taking as assessed by the Chandler Bystander task is compared to backward digit span performance, a commonly used measure of working memory (Case, Pascual-Leone). From an analysis of the Chandler task, it was predicted that the ability to hold and coordinate three items in working memory is prerequisite for a nonegocentric responses on this task. The results supported the hypothesis: Only children who correctly reserved three or more digits on the digit span task gave nonegocentric responses on the perspective taking task.